


It Will Heal

by bloominglungs



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29864289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloominglungs/pseuds/bloominglungs
Summary: This is just my self-indulgent headcanon for how I wish Attack on Titan would actually end, ya know. One can dream.
Relationships: Pieck Finger/Jean Kirstein
Comments: 1
Kudos: 39





	It Will Heal

**Author's Note:**

> Jeanpiku is canon idc. And everyone is happy. Including Reiner. That is all.

He had never seen a sky so blue in his short life; so ample and infinite, so far away from his head. For a moment, he almost forgot his badly injured leg, how much it hurt, how his blood soaked up his trousers and seeped into the grass beneath him.  _ It will heal _ , he thought.  _ It will take time, I will have to disinfect the wound and stitch it up, and I will have to clean it every day and bandage it. But it will heal. _ It was hard to keep his eyes open, the immense blue fading in and out of sight, distant cries just loud enough for him to capture but not loud enough to be understood. Everything was black again and the sky disappeared. 

“Reiner.”

The sky was no longer blue, it was off-white and weirdly illuminated as if the sun was a light bulb. Curtains of sleek black hair appearing in his line of sight, along with glimpses of a familiar face. It was hard to focus his eyes.

“Don’t try to move.” It was the same voice, a female voice he knew so well but couldn’t recall exactly whom it belonged to, his mind hazy and his eyelids heavy. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Even if he did want to move, his entire body ached, and he didn’t know why. He felt dizzy, displaced as if his body and his soul had been separated somewhere along the way. His eyes closed again, and he couldn’t bring himself to open them, but he felt something warm envelop his hand. And he heard the familiar voice again.

“You can rest now.”

Days and night melted into each other, the scorching heat of summer slowly giving way to the cooler, shorter Autumn days. His leg had healed but left him with a nasty scar and an inability to walk unaided. It hurt most of the time, something he wasn’t used to. He had spent about a decade, nearly half of his lifetime, in a body that could withstand incredible harm and heal almost instantly. He had broken bones, lost limbs, been cut and burned countless times and, within minutes, his body enveloped in smoke would heal and be whole again. Not this time. This time, it had taken several weeks and two operations to put his bones back in the right place.  _ You’ll never walk normally again _ , a doctor had told him, a pained look on his face. Reiner didn’t mind, though. 

Pieck hadn’t been as lucky, as her hand didn’t have time to fully materialise before everything reached its conclusion, and she ended up losing it entirely. Thanks to Armin, however, she had been given a functioning prosthetic with moving fingers and all. She adapted to it rather quickly. Reiner could hear her crying quietly into her pillow every night, something he had never expected from Pieck after knowing her for so many years. On a certain night, he found her and Jean on the porch, getting lost in each other’s kiss and that made him smile, although he’d rather not witness their intimate moments again. Jean had become much softer since then, easier to talk to, less hostile towards Reiner. He seemed to no longer have his crush on Mikasa, too. The poor girl seemed to have nightmares every night, always waking Reiner up with her sobs.

“It’s okay, we’re safe now,” the blonde man would whisper against her hair as he held her trembling body. “It’s over, honey.”

The term of endearment still felt odd, especially considering she had tried to kill him a few times, and they did hate each other at some point. But this was a new world and Reiner felt so bad for her, losing the only man she’s ever loved after a lifetime of pain and suffering has got to leave scars, deeper than the one on his leg. They had saved the world together, maybe they could be friends.

*

“My father was a good man,” Pieck started, her voice loud and clear but filled with sorrow. “He begged me not to-” she cleared her throat and took a deep breath “- not to risk my life and happiness for him. He wanted me to live a long life but I didn’t want a long life without him.”

After pausing for a couple of minutes to gather her thoughts, catching her breath and wiping the tears from her face, she continued.

“But he’s still with me,” she nodded, looking over at the people sitting right at the front, her eyes lingering on Jean. “And I’m ready to bring new life into this world, a world in peace.”

Another grave in the ground, another coffin six feet under. Mr Finger had sadly succumbed to his illness, but he had lived long enough to see the new world his daughter had helped create, and he left her with pride and a new life forming inside of her. Jean had suggested calling the baby Marco, she liked the name Colt. It didn’t matter what he would be called, he was already great just by being born into this world. 

“What if it’s a girl?”

“If it’s a girl, I hope we can name her Sasha.”

That night, Pieck cried again into her pillow for the last time in a long time. 

*

Levi had been working hard on something he claimed would be a success and Reiner hoped so. The old man deserved a break. He and Connie seemed to be onto something grand and, finally, after two winters, he was ready to open up his own tea shop and the first customers were, of course, _ his kids.  _

Annie brought her father along as he liked tea a lot, so much so that he and Levi became friends rather quickly. Karina came too and made it a point to show everyone the photograph of Reiner as a toddler she carried with her and tell embarrassing stories that made him blush as everyone laughed, especially Connie with his loud obnoxious laughter that frightened baby Sasha until she was crying.

“It’s okay Sasha, uncle Connie is just a dumbass,” Reiner joked, smiling at the toddler. She had huge brown eyes and the chubbiest cheeks Reiner had ever seen on such a small child.

“Excuse you?” Connie laughed again and the sound he produced was so hilarious that everyone just lost it and the small room of Levi’s tea shop was inundated with it. Falco nearly ran out of breath with how much he laughed and Gabi screamed at him, shaking his little body like a rag doll.

Armin rose from his chair, a cup of tea in his hand. The laughter subsided as everyone looked up at the blonde boy.

“To us. And to those we keep with us,” he said, bringing his cup up before drinking.

  
_ It heals, _ Reiner thought to himself, looking at all the people he had grown to love around him. It heals a little bit every day, even if it leaves ugly scars. 


End file.
